Sir, – The news ("National Museum considers closures and entrance fees", Front Page, October 31st) that, because of budget and staffing cuts imposed by the Government, the National Museum of Ireland is considering closures and the introduction of entrance fees echoes our philistinism of a century ago in failing to provide a gallery for the Hugh Lane pictures. Yeats's immortal lines about that debacle are again apposite: "What need you, being come to sense, /But fumble in a greasy till/And add the halfpence to the pence".
The parallel here gives new meaning to our so-called “Decade of Commemorations” – no better commemoration than to repeat the folly of the past! I say to the Government, also in the words of WB Yeats, albeit in a different context: “You have disgraced yourselves again”. – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Cabinteely, Dublin 18.